Robin Thicke canceled his US tour at the last minute, because of a vocal ailment. “All tour dates must be rescheduled due to doctor-ordered vocal rest until the end of the year, Thank you for your understanding and support. “, said a Sunday (11/11) blog posting at his MySpace page. Thicke was scheduled to kick off the outing yesterday in Englewood, CO, and visit clubs and theaters from coast to coast through mid-December. There’s no word yet as to when the tour will be rescheduled.
Some Chester French News !
Named after the all-American sculptor Chester French, both grads enjoy innovative, refreshing music that captivates individuality. Although they could easily be mistaken for stereotypical depictions of upper class nerds who drink tea at noon, Chester French has recently signed a deal with Star Trak/Interscope making them label-mates to Snoop Dogg & Rosco P. Coldchain. With casual lavender sweaters and traditional “preppy” apparel, the two are not hard to separate from any other two students on a Harvard campus- yet they’ve managed to get almost every major Hip Hop producer on their side.
They are currently in the studio finishing up the last few tracks of their album in Los Angeles with The Neptunes, Kanye West, Jermaine Dupri & Kenna. “We’re coming from the studio now, we’ve been working all day. Luckily we have this opportunity to focus on music exclusively, right at the same time we finished college, I got heavily into music when I was like five, so I guess I can’t really comment. It’s been crazy because we’ve been completely unknown. We weren’t even playing for two years, then we went into going underground…people weren’t hearing the music we were making or we weren’t playing any shows or anything…Our career so far, has been us trying to cook up some classic sh*t completely under the radar, we were completely underground…like in the basement,” D.A. follows up by saying, “We’re about to drop some major bombs.”
-> hiphopdx.com
-> myspace.com/chesterfrench
Some News About Clipse !
After a 4 year hiatus and disappointing numbers on their sophomore album “Hell Hath No Fury” (194,000) the Virginia duo Clipse have signed with Columbia Records in a joint venture with their label imprint “Re Up Records“.Along with the new deal, Clipse fans should expect Re-Up Gang’s We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 3, as well as the first Clipse album not produced by The Neptunes.
According to Pusha, the deal is worth about 1.8 million with bonus options and the right to retain the masters for anything done under their imprint, “Re Up Records“, anything under the Clipse however, is the property of the label. When asked if the deal with Rick Rubin & Columbia Records put a strain on the relationship of the Virginia duo and Pharell, Malice said…
“…I think that we have a certain etiquette that we’ve always followed as friends and as business partners. You don’t have expectations of people. This whole industry is madness. If something went wrong, I couldn’t blame Pharrell. Nobody don’t care about your hardships. People just wanna see a victory. It ain’t even about friendship, Neptunes, or Star Trak. This is real people with real families tryin’ to provide a better life and that’s what it’s about…”
“…I think we made definite classic albums with The Neptunes. I’ll miss The Neptunes, but creatively we have to grow. I’m extremely happy about the music that we have now. It’s helped me, because I’ve never had to sit down with 50 beats and do the tedious work of trying to find the one beat. At the end of the day we’re still gonna be doing music with The Neptunes as well…”
-> hiphop-elements.com
Pharrell Dishes On Britney !
Producer extraordinaire Pharrell Williams, who wrote Blackout’s most ballad-y number, “Why Should I Be Sad,” recently revealed to OK! that writing a song about the poptastrophe’s life was easy-breezy — he just read about her in the papers. “I basically just read clippings,” admits Williams. “I thought it’d be funny to take everything people were saying about her and turn it into a song.” “Why Should I Be Sad” is a sardonic take on the dissolution of Brit-Brit’s marriage to Kevin “K-Fed” Federline & mentions her supporting his Vegas habit and his alleged dalliances with other women.
-> okmagazine.com
The Hives’ Black & White Review !
Simply put — and in keeping with the whole pigmentation theme — this is the Swedish garage-rockers’ most colourful disc. On these 14 tracks, Howlin’ Pelle Almqvuist and his crew expand their sonic and stylistic palette with gleeful abandon. They flirt with hip-hop, funk, Motown soul & old-school new wave. They add plenty of keyboards to their guitar-based sound. And they mix it up with unlikely cohorts such as Neptunes freakmaster Pharrell Williams.
Well All Right! 3:29
Here’s where it gets interesting. Produced by Pharrell, this bouncy soul-popper opens with a Motownish, Can’t Hurry Love groove, then takes a hard left into a weirdly creepy waltz.
T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S. 3:38
Pharrell helps the boys get their Chic on with a ’70s funk groove, a one-finger guitar lick, falsetto vocals from Pelle and a robotic spelling-bee chorus.
-> winnipegsun.com
Facing The Gun !
There Is a new Kenna Interview on Allhiphop.com
Produced entirely by Chad Hugo, the album was almost universally well-received by the press and the relatively few people who actually heard it. The album is finally out and with the continued rise of The Neptunes and the increased attention from the mainstream media, one might expect that things will go better this time around. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t, but for better or for worse, Kenna doesn’t particularly care. He’s happy with the music and hopes you will be too; nothing else really matters.
Kenna Speaking About The Album Delays & The Video Shots !
“…when people care about you, they push the date because they want it to be successful, because they care about it and the want it to happen. I’m lucky enough, and it’s a weird thing to say that the delays are because my labels “Star Trak/Interscope” want for me to be successful…” “…we did the video, and it wasn’t what we needed or what we expected. It took a lot of time to get to the point where we realized it wasn’t gonna work out and shot a new one…”
Kenna Speaking About The New Label Star Trak/Interscope !
“…Interscope was always the right home for me. I went there before, but it was just a debacle, but in this case, it’s family. Pharrell & Chad have know me forever, they know me creatively, and they know my world. They know I’m critical, and that I think that I’m creating things for the future. They look to the future because that’s where they wanna live. It fits well together…”
Kenna Speaking About Why He Didn’t Get Signed Before On Star Trak !
“… you want to come up on your own and not ride shirttails. My boys are doing well, so I don’t wanna just get on the bandwagon. I like to go about it by myself and have my hustle and figure out what I want to accomplish. At a certain point, not based on sales or financial success, but based on the creativity of my peers, we can look at each other and see I’ve got a spot on my shelf…”
Kenna Speaking About The Album Title !
“…before I even started that album, and it was six conversations, annoyingly at eleven o’clock in the morning every single day. It was the first thing Pharrell thought of in the morning like, “Yo, Kenna? You need to make sure they see your face, Kenna…”
Kenna Talking About Working With Pharrell JT & ?uestlove !
“… It’s not much different. Pharrell knows how I work with Chad and he just added to it. He knows he can come with his elements, and I’ll come with my elements and write my own thing and we’ll work it out together. It’s a real collaboration between him and I, because he respects me and I respect him and the visions that he has. He’s usually reaching into an oblivion that I don’t know about, and I’m happy to take that on board because to a certain extent, he knows that I’m reaching into something that he can’t get to…”
“…That’s what “Say Goodbye To Love” & “Loose Wires” are about – a real meshing of our worlds. It turned out so great and he provided an element that was missing to that album. JT & ?uestlove are friends as well so it doesn’t take a lot for them to be on my records. I don’t really count on their…like I said with the other thing, I don’t ride shirttails. I ask people to be part of my projects for specific reasons – because I believe they can add something specific to what I’m creating, not because it’ll add to my marketing. Though… that is the [way it works], isn’t it? Still, I’m just not that kid at the end of the day. I wanna make great sh*t and just be surprised when everyone loves it as much as I do…”
-> Read The Whole Interview Here !
The Make Sure They See My Face Project !
– Baptized In Blacklight (C.Hugo)
– Be Still (C.Hugo)
– Better Wise Up (C.Hugo)
– Big Lights (Neptunes)
– Black Goodbye Ride (C.Hugo)
– Blink Radio feat. Malcolm Gladwell (Interlude) (Neptunes)
– Daylight (C.Hugo)
– Face The Gun (C.Hugo)
– Down (Neptunes)
– Good Luck (Interlude) (C.Hugo)
– In The Shadows (C.Hugo)
– Live & Flow (C.Hugo)
– Loose Wires (Neptunes)
– Make Sure They See My Face (C.Hugo)
– Mind At Case (C.Hugo)
– My Religion (C.Hugo)
– Never Let Me Down (C.Hugo)
– Out Of Control (C.Hugo)
– Phantom Always feat. Justin Timberlake (C.Hugo)
– Rearview (C.Hugo)
– Rocaway Life feat. Justin Timberlake (C.Hugo)
– Say Goodbye To Love (feat. Pharrell) (Neptunes)
– Say Goodbye To Love (Neptunes)
– Stings & Hurts (C.Hugo)
– Static (C.Hugo)
– Sun Red Sky Blue (C.Hugo)
– The Deafest 1s feat. Nas (C.Hugo)
– What If The Sky (Main) (C.Hugo)
– Wide Awake (C.Hugo)
– Untitled feat. Tom Morello (Rage Against The Mashine) (C.Hugo)
– Untitled feat. Mike Shinoda (M.Shinoda)
– Untitled (M.Shinoda)